Explain meaning of Mumbai scams

Question

While reading about Mumbai on wikitravel, before my next business trip, I have found information about two scams, said to be popular in this city (or entire India?), which either lacks details or is completely not understandable by me. I will appreciate any help in explaining them.

First, in "To and from airport" section:

There is a well-known scam with the employees here replacing your 500 rupee bill with a 100 rupee bill and giving you change for the latter.

Either I'm dumb, or I don't follow it. If employee is replacing my 500 rupee bill with 100 rupee bill and then he is giving me a change for the rest, then where seems to be the scam here?

Then, in "Stay safe" section there's a note:

There is a scam, in which a persons asks you for a change of 1000 INR currency note. Once you give him two 500 INR notes he changes these notes to two 100 INR without you noticing and thus demands 800 INR more from you. Beware when someone asks you change for 1000 INR.

Now, this is something, that I completely don't understand. In details:

• when someone asks for a change for 1000 INR bill, then why should I handle him 2500 INR?
• even if I give him 2500 INR bill, which he replace with 2100 INR bill (is there such bill anyway), then how can he ask for "missing" 800 INR, if 2500-2100 = 400 INR?

Answer 1

It says that, when you hand them 500 INR bills, they replace those with 100 INR bills since they look similar. So in the first case, when you hand them 500 INR and the object costs per say 50 INR, they will give you 50 INR change instead of 450 INR. When you ask them about where the rest is, they will show you 100 INR and tell you that you have given them 100 INR instead of 500 INR.

This is the same with the second case. They basically use the sleight of hand, and change your money with less valued look alike. This happens a lot in Mexico, and happened to me as well. When I started swearing in Spanish and walking towards the guy, he gave me correct change and ran away.

Answer 2

The 500 and 100 Indian rupees bills are almost identical in size and also looks somewhat similar.

So to answer your first question, when you pay someone with INR 500 bill for some service/good, the person might trick you by saying that you paid him/her just INR 100 and return you the change. Suppose one item costs INR 70 and you paid the vendor INR 500 for the item. So now the vendor might say that you paid just INR 100 and will give you a change of INR 30 instead of INR 430.

For the second question, "2 500 INR notes" means two 500 INR notes. There is no Indian rupee bill of denomination 2500. Only up-to 1000 INR notes are available. So the situation is similar to first one. As here also one might trick you by replacing INR 500 notes with INR 100 notes.

Answer 3

1. If you want to travel to and from Mumbai airport (international/domestic) look for taxi counters inside the airport. Don't hire from unscrupulous persons (this way you wont get scammed). You can also book a cab by calling Merucabs.com or Easycabs.com anywhere in the city

2. Regarding staying safe in the city, usually Mumbai is very safe, except minor incidents of some people try charge you more, knowing that you are foreign and can afford more money. Don't pay anybody in foreign currencies (use rupees). This way they don't charge more.

when someone asks for a change for 1000 INR bill, then why should I handle him 2500 INR?

Can't agree more! Don't believe in any of those nonsense!

3. Avoid beggars and be wary of pick pockets in crowded areas and don't carry large cash. Don't fall for honeypot scams. Trust your instincts :J

Indian rupee notes of denominations 100, 500, 1000 may be of similar sizes but not different colors. If you don't know how it looks like see this link and this will give you some prior knowledge prior to your travel.

Yes, con people are likely to scam/cheat you if you make mistakes counting.

https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/ic_banknotes.aspx

Keep in mind that only rupees notes 1000,500,100,50,20,10,5 are valid in India. You can check the security features in above link.

One last piece of advice: 500 rupee notes are very commonly used in India. I suggest to avoid using 1000 rupee note for small expenses (bit hard to get a change).

1000 Rupees

500 Rupees

100 Rupees